Squirrel Symbolism

Animal symbolism is very important when it comes to understanding the meaning behind our interactions with animals. Knowing about squirrel symbolism allows you to make better decisions either for artistic or metaphysical purposes.

Squirrels are members of the same family as prairie dogs and chipmunks, and cousins to raccoons. There are about 300 species of squirrels distributed through almost all types of habitats. And beyond their endless chit-chats and playful character is an efficient, resourceful, and adaptive animal.

Squirrels are characterized by lean bodies, bushy tails, and fairly big eyes. And like their physical appearance, squirrels symbolize comfort and warmth. Squirrels have strong and flexible limbs that allow them a playful yet efficient form of movement. A squirrel’s body is built in such a way that they can jump headfirst from a tree or tall place. Some species of squirrels even have wing-like features that allow them to glide.

On the whole, the squirrel is a seemingly cool and carefree animal because behind the scenes, the squirrel is an extremely adaptive and resourceful animal.

Like real squirrels, people with squirrel spirit animals tend to appear flawless and smooth. They are capable of executing different tasks with a playful aura and still have time to hang out with friends and have exclusive non-work-related fun.

There’s a particularly interesting squirrel in Greek mythology; Ratatoskr. Ratatoskr is a squirrel known to convey a message between different parts of the tree of life. In some depictions, he is also known to gnaw at the tree to encourage regrowth and rebirth. Unlike Ratatoskr, a lot of other folktales symbolizes squirrels as cunning, greedy, or destructive beings. Squirrels can be quite cunning and do whatever it takes as a means to the end of their comfort and food security.

However, the last thing on the squirrel’s character is greed. Squirrels do not store more than required for them to survive the winter. Grey squirrels also encourage the growth of great trees when they forget where they hid their nuts. Consequently, people with the squirrel spirit animal can be misinterpreted as cunning or greedy when they’re only trying to make ends meet or even just doing what they enjoy.

What other advantage or disadvantage comes with having the squirrel spirit animal? What does it mean when you see a squirrel? In real life and dreams. Beyond metaphysical symbolism, what does the squirrel mean in tattoos, paintings, or even logos?

Having The Squirrel Animal Totem

Having the squirrel as your spirit animal is very exciting. Like the squirrel, you can achieve balance without much struggle. It also means that you’re able to transit flawlessly between tasks and mood without losing touch with anything.

You’re also able to keep good inter-personal and work relationships because of your strong communication skills because squirrels are known to be communicative. However, there’s more to it than this, although small, and easily overcome, having the squirrel spirit animal also comes with a few perks.

Positive Squirrel Symbolism

Flawless Transition between Work and Play

If you have the squirrel spirit animal, your most obvious advantage is how seamlessly you transit between different tasks and play. If you are not already, a Squirrel totem means that you have a high potential for adaptability and multitasking. You are very capable of working a great deal without letting it affect your relationships.

Creativity

People with the squirrel spirit animal also tend to be very determined and imaginative. This leads to an exceptional form of creativity. People with squirrel spirit animals can tackle a task with an unrelenting intuition and out of box thinking. They also stay on multiple tasks and make sure they complete them.

Motivation

As a person with the squirrel totem, you also tend to be highly motivated, especially with friends. This does not mean that introverts with the squirrel totem do not enjoy this motivation. They tend to enjoy more of this as introverts with the squirrel totem also tend to be knowledge and creativity-driven nerds.

Discipline

As a person with a squirrel totem, you always make sure to finish tasks and projects, even when they look like a dead end. This ability, complemented with a good multitasking ability, makes you a disciplined, yet carefree worker.

Energy & Resources Savvy

You also tend to be good at saving up resources and energy for bad days. You might like to hoard your time, energy, and resources against the expectation of hard times. You have no trouble with saving different emergency funds or even saving up your time and completing more tasks against an expected deficit of time or energy.

Good Organizational Skills

When it comes to organization, you also have a good chance for thorough planning and organization. You plan and work towards situations and keep a functional checklist. And even without the checklist, you’re very capable of keeping mental tabs of situations.

The big picture is that you are very tough and adaptive to adverse situations.

Negative Squirrel Symbolism

Overthinking

Even with your armory of tough and adaptive weapons, you are also prone to overthink things in your quest to plan effectively. You should learn to consciously not worry about things.

You’re prone to gathering Unnecessary Baggage. Also, your combination of multitask-ability and an endless energy reserve might lead you to gather too many concerns and relationships. Learn to evaluate your life and remove unwanted and toxic things from it. This will go a long way in saving you from gathering emotional, mental, and financial baggage. And allow you to focus your energy on the most important things.

Even in day to day activity, learn to stand back and notice places where your personality causes you to gather things that are not necessary to your growth and development. This lightens up your tasks and increases your speed and efficiency.

Erratic

Your personality might also skew towards erratic. You tend to make last-minute decision changes and switch between different things. You might become restless and impatient with things. The solution is to train yourself to be patient and make more stable decisions.

Restlessness

You might find fun in lots of things. You should also realize that doing a small, selected, and scrutinized several jobs/tasks/projects over a long period will reward you with the same level of pleasure as doing different things at that same range of time. And will reward you with far more growth and development.

What does it mean to see a Squirrel in Your Dream?

The meaning is usually positive. It could mean economic and personal growth or expected growth. Seeing squirrels in your dream often predicts positive events that are happening or about to happen in your life. There are only a handful cases where dreams about squirrels might mean warning of looming danger.

Your Squirrel Spirit Animal Is Trying to Contact You

If you dream frequently about squirrels, it might mean that your spirit squirrel animal is trying to contact you. This can be due lots of reasons. It might be that you have not been paying attention to your true self and your squirrel spirit animal is warning you that life could be a lot easier if you paid attention to it. It might also be to warn you or simply communicate with you.

Get Ready for a Tasking Week or project

If you dream about busy squirrels, it often means that you should prepare for a tasking week. Squirrels prepare heavily for the future and seeing one in your dream often means you should prepare for a task ahead.

You Should Save Up For The Future

Dreaming of dead squirrels means you should begin saving against a drought. It might also mean that you should improve on your savings but not necessarily because tough times are coming.

Expect a Financial Breakthrough

Dreaming of white squirrels means you should expect a boom in your financial or social life. It often means years of hard work finally paying off. Squirrels prepare for the future and seeing a white squirrel means preparations you’ve made are yielding or about to yield results.

Seek Advice and Watch out for Hard times

Dreaming of a black squirrel means that you should expect a short eclipse. Depending on the context of happenings in your life.

A black squirrel means that you should seek advice and plan towards a coming deficit. Often, the deficit won’t last long if you plan well in advance. Thus, it also serves as a warning that you shouldn’t panic over a looming crisis, but should rather plan.

You Got Something Locked Down

Contrary to what you might assume, dreaming of a caged squirrel often means good news. It means that you’ve done something that will reap good rewards in the future. A caged squirrel symbolizes that you have a hold on something that will bring positive results later in the future.

Expect Responsibility

Dreaming of feeding or caring for squirrels might mean you’ll be taking parental responsibilities soon. Caring for squirrels means that you are developing a chance for responsibility, either financially or emotionally. You should examine your life for context when you dream about this. It is often a sign that you should take a looming responsibility because it will be rewarding. You might dream of feeding a squirrel while you’re deciding whether to keep a pregnancy or to adopt a pet, or invest in a friend’s idea. You know what that means.

What does a Squirrel Symbolize?

Squirrel in Elemental Culture

In elemental culture, squirrels are regarded as sun-loving creatures. This depicts them with positivity and mindfulness, giving them a symbolic connection with the attainment of Zen. They are also regarded for their ability to mix work and play effectively.

Squirrel Symbolism In Shamanism

Squirrels are used to depict a need to declutter. Squirrels mean you should examine your life for unnecessary baggage and let go of them.

Squirrel in Modern Language

In modern language. The word squirreling is defined as behaving in a restless, over worrying, or sometimes cunning manner

Squirrel Sign in Astrology and Zodiac Signs

Squirrels mean intuitive, insightful, and prolific. It also depicts being loving and practical

Squirrel Symbolism in Greek Culture

The Greeks viewed the symbolism of squirrels through the lens of Ratatoskr, a mythic squirrel known to serve as a messenger between different gods located in different places on the tree of life.

Squirrel Symbolism in Celtic Culture

The Celts symbolize squirrels as creatures of nobility and trustworthiness. Celtic folklore also depicts the Squirrel as an harbingers of rain and snow.

Squirrel Symbolism in Native American Cultures

Native Americans tell folklores of squirrels who used to be large creatures but became small because of a particularly unwanted act that affected man negatively. A Lenape folklore talks about how the squirrel used to be larger than man and used to kill all animals for food. One day, he killed a man who was God’s chosen, and since then, The Squirrel was made small and men were authorized to kill it for food. Squirrels means noisy, bossy, and annoying in Native American cultures.

Squirrel Symbolism in Chinese Culture

Squirrels symbolizes light-heartedness and fun in the Chinese.

Squirrels in Art

Squirrels appear in lots of 18th-century paintings. This is because then, squirrels were fairly new types of pets reserved for the upper class. There are lots of paintings of high-class women or kids posing with a silver chained squirrel on his/her wrist. Having a squirrel as a pet depicts privilege in the 18th century.

Today, paintings of squirrels are often to depict a much deeper meaning. The presence of squirrels in a painting means the painter is trying to convey an aura of mystery or one of the characters of the squirrels. It could also be for purely aesthetic purposes or an attempt to depict the ordinariness, yet uniqueness of this animal.

Squirrel in Tattoos

Having the tattoo of a squirrel often means the owner is trying to wear his personality on his/her body. Tattoos of squirrels mean preparedness and liveliness. Sometimes, the owner might decide to depict a squirrel doing something, often an act they’re not known to do. A hat of a squirrel wearing a relaxed look or drawn to be relaxed might be the owner telling you to relax and chill out.

Squirrels in Brand Logos

A brand using the image of a squirrel in its logo is trying to convey an aura of energy, practicality, and a relaxed but resourceful approach to work. It also conveys the brand’s optimism and ability to get through tough times with relative ease to their counterparts.

FAQs

Are Squirrels Intelligent?

Squirrels are very intelligent and curious. There have been cases of squirrels remembering human faces and even wild squirrels are known to recognize a particular individual and associate him as risk-free and as a source of food. They also have a strong memory that serves them well in remembering where they buried their nuts and acorns.

Squirrels are known to employ elaborate tricks when burying their nuts to fool onlookers about the true burial spot. As pets, squirrels are known to form strong emotional ties with their owners. They are known to be affectionate and respond to names and interaction cues from their owners.

Do squirrels trust enough to approach humans?

Squirrels can learn to regard humans as a part of their environment and not run from them. However, it takes extra effort for a squirrel to trust humans fully to take food or interact with them. Squirrels are very careful when it comes to interaction with humans and prefer to stay at a distance. However, when necessary, wild squirrels are known to approach humans whom they’ve recognized as risk-free and as a source of food.

In much rarer cases, a squirrel can approach humans for care. A few cases have been documented in urban habitats where a young squirrel who lost its family approaches nearby humans for foster care.

Naturally, squirrels are not genetically programmed to run from humans. But they learn from experience and other surrounding squirrels. When allowed, squirrels do approach humans.

What does it mean if a squirrel comes up to you?

Though very rare and time-consuming, and sometimes just randomly, wild squirrels do approach humans. A squirrel coming to you means that you should take life a little less seriously. It means that you should let things happen and allow life to take its free course. This does not mean that you should stop planning. It means that perhaps you worry too much over things that you have little or no control over.

What are the Cultural depictions of squirrels?

Depending on which culture, squirrel symbolism is translated differently. However, most cultures depict squirrels with positivity and nobility. In some cultures though, squirrels have a bad reputation and are frowned upon as bad omens.

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Bottom Line

Whether you’re just realizing that your spirit animal is the squirrel, or you just happen to be dreaming up squirrels recently, or you’re just an artist searching for meaning in the mundane, knowledge about the symbolism of squirrels will go a long way in helping you fulfill your personal and professional growth and development.

Knowledge about squirrel symbolism also goes a long way in understanding the actual animals. It takes you an inch closer to their world and enables you to be more empathetic towards them.

Perhaps you’re even unconcerned about squirrels and their symbolism, you’ll surely agree that knowledge about squirrels and their symbolism allows you to create better relationships.